


Warmth

by PhoenixVictoria



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:37:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixVictoria/pseuds/PhoenixVictoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the demon doesn't just go away because the drinking, carousing, Irishman gets his body back.</p><p>             Set early season two- Angel tries to come to terms with his past, and gains some surprising allies along the way. Angst and fluff with a dash of smut, shaken, not stirred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

"Hi, Angel," says Willow Rosenburg with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

 

(Willow Rosenburg reminds him of a French girl he- Angelus- killed in the 1870's- the red of her hair, the sweetness in her scent. He'd already been full on her little sisters, and Dru was still playing with the baby and Will was looking through the mother's jewelry box for a Christmas present (for Dru, because Will had dragged him out shopping for Darla last week) and he'd been in the mood for a little more screaming, so he'd bent the girl over the table and fucked her until her pelvis snapped in half and the blood was gushing all over his cock and the pretty lace doilies under the vase of roses on the table, and Darla had slid down the wall across from them to sit on the body of the fat butler and pulled up her dress to press her fingers into her bare cunt- except that girl was a bit younger than Willow, around nine, and even accounting for age she probably wasn't as smart, because Willow was terrified of Dru and the girl had been stupid enough to invite her in the house.)

 

He quirks his lips up at her. "I stayed a bit late helping Giles," he explains. "He was nice enough to let me sleep the day in his office." 

 

She's still smiling, and for a moment he- Angelus- imagines peeling her pretty lips off. "Buffy'll be here soon," she promises. "It's just, Ms. Calender wanted to talk to her about a body the police found."

 

He feels a tinge of regret- kind Willow Rosenburg should not be able to talk about bodies like they're an everyday occurrence, even if they are. (And that, at least, is a feeling he can ascribe purely to the souled part of him.)

 

"Maybe I just wanted to talk to  _you_ ," he says, just a tad flirtatious, nothing that will annoy Buffy like when he flirts with Cordelia- and he shouldn't find her jealously so adorable, but the face she makes gives his nonexistent heart a fluttery sensation.

 

Willow frowns as he pulls out the chair across from her and sits down. "Why?" she asks, genuinely curious.

 

He raises an eyebrow. 

 

"Not that I don't want to talk to you!" she says, eyes widening in horror at her perceived offense. "It's just... why would  _you_  want to talk to  _me?_ "

 

His lips twitch up again. "Don't sell yourself short, Willow," he says. "You're an interesting girl."

 

She beams, and he feels a rush of affection for sweet, naive Willow Rosenburg.

 

He could break her so easily.

 

"What are you reading?" he asks, before memories can swamp his mind and shame can fill his lungs.

 

"Oh!" still smiling, Willow lifts up the massive tome. "I'm only on the introduction," she confides, embarrassed. "It's a bit dry..." She's still talking, but for a moment he can't breathe as he looks at the title- _An Anthology of_ _Noted Vampyres of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries, Detailing their Greatest Crimes, Places of Origin, and Possible Weaknesses._  


 

"Willow," he interrupts, harsher than he should be with panic, because it just might kill him if kind, accepting Willow Rosenburg flinched every time she saw him."You can't read that book."

 

She frowns. "Why not?"

 

  
_Because you'll never be able to look at me again._  "Because you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life."

 

"Really?" she asks, giving the book a concerned look.

 

"Really," he says, and that would be the end of it, but Willow Rosenburg is giving him a strange look, and then she glances down at the book and her eyes widen in realization. She flips it open to the table of contents, and how can a stomach that hasn't worked in two hundred and fifty years feel sick?

 

"The Fanged Four," she reads out loud. "Darla, Angelus, Drusilla, and William the Bloody, alias Spike. Also known as The House of Aurelius and The Scourge of Europe."

 

"We have a whole chapter?" he asks, and his voice is very calm.

 

"A whole section, actually," Willow Rosenburg whispers apologetically. "Each of you- them- have their own chapter."

 

He gives a mirthless snort. Willow Rosenburg closes the book. "I'm sorry," she says, sounding near tears, and he- the demon- thinks of all the ways to make them spill over.

 

He shakes his head. "Not your fault," he assures her, and goes to rise, because sweet Willow Rosenburg doesn't want to look at him right now, and then her warm hand rests on his. He looks over at her in surprise. 

 

"It's not your fault, either," she says, with unexpected passion. "It wasn't you, and it's not right that those stupid Gypsies made you suffer for it."

 

He smiles, flips his hand over, and squeezes her warm hand gently with his frozen one, and he doesn't tell her that she's wrong.

* * *

Oh, he doesn't think it's his  _fault._  Well, he does think it, but rationally he knows that makes no sense. His soul, the part that makes him Angel, the part that Buffy loves- that wasn't there when he was cutting a bloody swathe across Europe. And no, it's not fair that the Gypsies made the soul part of him suffer for what the unsouled part has done. 

 

(Sometimes he thinks they took a huge risk. What if he'd been a terrible person while alive? What if, when he'd "woken up" in the forest clearing, a century and a half worth of murders solidifying in his mind and chest, he'd slaughtered them all like sheep? He won't pretend he hadn't considered it a few times in the next fifty years.)

 

No, where Willow Rosenburg is wrong is when she says  _it wasn't you_.

 

Because the demon doesn't just go away because the drinking, carousing, Irishman gets his body back. No, the demon stays.

 

And there's no clean divide, either, between the thoughts of the demon and him, because the demon is him, sort of, and he is the demon, sort of, and-

 

And his mind is a mess, really. He could chalk every thought of rape and murder up to the demon, but when he finds bruises on Buffy from the vampires she fights he wants to slaughter them all, and where does that come from? He wants to chalk every kind impulse up to the soul, but when he thinks of Spike and Dru he feels odd rushes of-  _affection,_ and where the hell does that come from? Who wants to punch Xander? Who wants to bend Buffy over the couch in his apartment and fuck her until she screams his name? Who wants to snap at Cordelia? Who wants to snark at Giles? Who wants to snark at Buffy? Who wants to snark, period? 

 

Who wants to break the tiny mirror over his bathroom sink every time the fog clears from his boiling-hot shower and he can't see anything in it?

 

There's no dividing line, and sometimes he think it might be more bearable if he just knew, if he just knew which thing would never have crossed his mind if he hadn't ever met Darla in that pub, followed her into that alleyway. It's only sometimes, though, because what if he doesn't like the answer?

* * *

He confesses this to Buffy in bits and pieces, in stilted words over a slice of pizza and a glass of O Positive, in soft murmurs after a kissing session, and Buffy understands- because as golden as his girl is, she has her own demon, her own dark side. Slayers always do. 

 

And Buffy leans over and kisses him and  _loves_  him, and he loves her back, so much his still heart aches with it.

* * *

They're all in the library, looking over printed-out morgue photos that Willow's hacked into the coroner's records to obtain.

 

"This is sick," says Buffy, from his lap. Her skin is soft and the pulse in her neck is too fast. He wants to bury his teeth in her, and other bits.

 

"Why do I have to look at these, again?" asks Cordelia, in agreement, from where she sprawls across the table, her ankles crossed up behind her. Her breasts are pushed up by the tabletop, and Xander's been sneaking peeks down her shirt all night- actually, every man in the place has been sneaking peeks down her shirt all night, Xander's just the only one not bothering to hide it.

 

"I know," says Willow. "She was  _our age._ "

 

"I used to imagine her naked," says Xander. "Now it's just depressing." Willow kicks him under the table. Beside Cordy, fingers interlaced with Willow's, Oz nods in agreement.

 

Giles, whose fingers keep twitching as if to seize Miss Calender's the same way, shakes him head. "We're looking at her," he tells Cordelia for the fourth time, "because we're trying to figure out what killed her."

 

"And r- and did all the other stuff to her, too," adds Xander. Angel finds it blackly amusing that he can't say "rape."

 

"It's gotta be a vampire," says Buffy, not for the first time. "Look at the bite marks-"

 

"It's not a vampire," says Angel, speaking for the first time since they got here after Buffy's patrol.

 

"How do you know that, Deadboy?" snaps Xander.

 

(Xander looks like a lot of people he's killed. Right now he remembers the young Italian couple out for a walk, rich aristocrats. He'd butchered the woman and slowly strangled the man while he indulgently watched, like the proud father he was, as Drusilla pulled out her intestines and strung them up through the olive branches.

 

"Aren't they pretty, Daddy? Like ribbons...")

 

"Why would a vampire stab somebody?" he tries, because he doesn't really want to get into the nitty-gritties of what a girl looks like after she's been raped by a vampire.

 

"I dunno, didn't your buddy Spike use to impale people on railroad spikes?"

 

"He's not my buddy," he grits out.

 

"It's gotta be a vampire," says Buffy again, and he gives up on the idea of making it out of here without horrifying everyone he knows.

 

"There's not enough blood, first of all," he says. He can't quite look at Buffy. 

 

"Wha'd'you mean, there's not enough blood? She's covered in it-"

 

"Assuming he raped her before stabbing her, there's not enough on her thighs. If he'd been a vampire, she'd've probably been dead before he was finished, unless he was being gentle for some reason, in which case she'd probably show a lot more marks of torture, because you're not gentle to someone only to up and kill them four minutes later, you're gentle to someone so you can keep 'em alive for a few days and shove hot pokers up their asses."

 

Everyone stares. He's not done.

 

"The bite marks are human. If you're raping someone, you do it in game face. Also, her pelvis isn't broken."

 

Black, treacly memories are rising in his mind. He knows what's going on, but he thought he was done with this-

 

"How do you know all this?" asks Xander Harris suspiciously, and then "Oh."

 

His ears are ringing with screams, he thought he was done with this-

 

"Angel, are you all right?" asks his Buffy concernedly from his lap, he can't breathe-

 

"Angel, dude, you're not lookin' too good-" says Oz, he can't  _breathe, why does he need to_ -

 

The tide in his mind rises like a living thing and pulls him under.

* * *

He comes back slowly, like usual. There are voices all around him- they sound familiar, and one rings with a particular golden timbre that reminds him of honey-

 

"Angel," asks Buffy again. She sounds like she's in tears. "Angel, please."

 

"Angel?" That's Giles. "Angel, you're in the library in Sunnydale." So Giles has a vague idea what's going on with him. Somehow he's not surprised. 

 

"Angel," Buffy pleads again, what the fuck is making her so sad, he'll shred it- oh, wait. 

 

 He opens his eyes and encounters Xander Harris's face scarcely an inch from his own. He'd been on his knees, leaning forward, hands clamped over his ears in a futile attempt to blot out the noise- now he jerks backwards with a strangled yell and lands flat on his back, trapping Oz beneath him and elbowing Giles in the solar plexus on the way down. He swears inventively in Gaelic.

 

"That was insulting, wasn't it," says Xander, as Giles groans and Buffy hurls herself over his chest, her arms going around his neck in a death grip. He sits up slowly, clutching her to him. She smells like honey, and love and helpless anger, with a comforting hint of death. Behind him, Oz makes a wheezing sound, like a puppy he'd once squashed in front of a child he'd nailed to the wall. Willow helps him sit up and Angel slumps back into the same spot, breathing gradually slowing.

 

"Sorry, everybody," he says, feeling humiliated and tired and raw. "Did I puke?"

 

"No," says Cordy. She alone was not kneeling over (or under) him, instead perched on a chair, but he can smell the relief in her scent, and it warms his dead heart. He thinks of a girl he killed in China who'd smelled like that when he'd snapped the neck of her would-be rapist, only to get a good look at him and wet herself.

 

Buffy pulls herself out of his arms, still clinging to his hand in a, ha-ha, death grip. "Are you alright?" she asks quietly.

 

"Yeah, I'm fine," he assures her.

 

 There's silence.

 

"Okay, I'm gonna come right out and say it," announces Xander, who sounds more sympathetic than usual. "Angel, buddy, you got issues."

 

"Xander!" comes from multiple throats. Cordy smiles almost shyly as Jenny Calendar (who smells oddly like guilt) and Willow deliver the prerequisite smacks, but wipes it off her face before anyone else can notice.

 

What does it say about a relationship that  _he_  doesn't understand how it works?

 

"What  _was_  that?" asks Xander. "You looked like you were having a seizure."

 

"You were screaming," says Buffy. "In other languages."

 

"You were yelling for Darla," adds Willow. "And Drusilla, and William- Spike, I guess."

 

"You said Willy, a couple of times," says Xander. "Was that still slang for penis when you were a kid?"

 

There's an Irish brogue creeping into his voice, which only happens when he's out of it, and obviously he's a bit delirious, because why the hell else would he say what he says next?

 

"I called Spike Willy, when I was teasin' the lad," he confesses to the air. "He called me Jelly, sometimes, or Gramps, when he wasn't pissed at me fer fuckin' Dru." There's silence. "Sorry, Buffy, Cordy, Willow, Miss Calender. Screwin', I meant."

 

More silence. He wonders why, goes over what he said in his mind, and says "sorry," again, while praying to a god he doesn't believe in for the ground to swallow him up.

 

The silence continues. Buffy does not release his hand.

 

"So," says Cordelia, checking her makeup, the scent of her sharp annoyance overlaid with bitter concern, "what exactly was that?"

 

Everyone's looking at him for an explanation. He closes his eyes, but that doesn't free him from the smell. Concern and anger and sympathy- still that bizarre guilt from Miss Calender.

 

"Nothing," he rasps.

 

There's a disbelieving moment of quiet. 

 

"We're not going to dignify that with an answer," says Miss Calender. 

 

He sighs. "Look, it's really not important, alright?" he forces the last hints of an accent out of his tone. He can't stand to hear that accent. "It's- sometimes the memories get a little much, that's all."

 

"A little much?" Buffy chokes out. She's quit being relieved- now she's angry. He'd like to see her face, but if he sees her "angry face" he'll start thinking about sex, which will probably give him another- whatever he has. "Angel, you sounded like you were going to die!"

 

"You didn't look all that great, either," adds Cordelia.

 

"I don't know why we're surprised," says Oz, recovered. "The dude's got, what, a hundred and fifty years worth of traumatic memories,  _plus_  a massively guilty conscience? He's probably got more PTSD than every Korean war veteran alive." 

 

"And ninety-plus years of dealing with it!" he snaps.

 

"Yeah," says Xander. "That really looked like you were dealing with it."

 

He snarls deep in his chest. Everyone but Buffy and Willow flinch back. He realizes suddenly that Willow has a hand resting on his shoulder, that it's been there for a while. He tilts his head so his ear brushes her wrist.

 

"Angel," says Willow quietly. "You should talk to someone."

 

He briefly considers biting her arm off, and then goes to let her down gently, but Cordelia speaks up. "What, like a professional? Yeah, that'll work out great. Hey, doc, I'm a vampire who spent a couple hundred years slaughtering the innocent, then got a soul, which gave me massive guilt issues and a bunch of depressing emotional baggage. Now I'm allied with the sworn enemy of my kind, plotting the murders of the only family I've got left, seeing as I killed the other one. I suffer from seizure-flashback thingies that creep the hell out of my friends, but am in impressive denial about their existence. Oh, and I've been dating the same girl for four months and she  _still_  won't have sex with me." 

 

"Cordy!" cries Buffy. Giles makes a choking noise- Willow squeaks.

 

" _We've_  been dating for  _two_  months," says Xander speculatively.

 

Abruptly, Angel's laughing. He laughs until he can't breathe, and then laughs some more. When he stops and opens his eyes, everyone looks even more worried than before.

 

"Willow," he says reasonably, with a wave of affection. "What good would  _talking_  do?"

 

"Talking can be quite helpful," says Giles. "Get things off your chest."

 

"Who would I talk to?" he demands. 

 

"Me," says Buffy, hurt. "You can talk to me."

 

"Buffy, love," he says, disengaging his hand from hers to cup the side of her face. "I'd rather chop off my own bits than have you think I was anything less than perfect."

 

"I don't think you're perfect," she argues lamely. Her face doesn't clear, but the clouds aren't offended anymore.

 

"Then talk to us," says Willow, impassioned. "We are your friends, you know." She ignores Xander's disbelieving snort. "I know you think we can't handle it, but you'd be surprised."

 

Angel closes his eyes again and lets his head land on the floor with a  _thunk_.

 

"You don't understand," he rasps.

 

"You're right, we don't," says Buffy. "If only you could talk and explain it to us."

 

"Fine," he spits, and the accent is back and he's suddenly so  _angry_ \- "Ye wanna hear the whole nasty story?" He rockets up, yanking his hand out of Buffy's. "Ye wanna hear all me woes?" He glares at them all. "I've been thinkin' about nought but killin' people fer an hundred n' fifty-odd years. Then, I get me soul, and the habit sticks around, yea? Ev'ry fuckin' thing I see reminds me o' someone I've hurt. Fish hooks, mirrors, dressers, nails- I impaled a baby with an umbrella once!" He's shouting. Everyone, including Buffy and Willow this time, is flinching back.

 

"The Gypsies wanted me t' suffer- I'm fuckin' sufferin'! I hate swearin', cause I think o' Willy- I hate dolls, cause I think o' Dru- I can't watch Gone with the Wind cause I think o' fuckin' Darla! Don' even get me startin' on what porn does to me!

 

"An' the people- fuck' the people! Ev'ry person I see is someone I killed! I can't think about anythin' else, I haven't fer ninety-plus years- except sometimes, sometimes, when I'm with you people, with Buffy, I can think about somethin', anythin' else!"

 

"Angel-" says Buffy.

 

"Except, sometimes I can't! Sometimes, I look at you lot an' think stuff like-" he points at Jenny Calender. "Oh, she looks like that girl in Russia. Darla got off watchin' me anally rape her, and then I fucked Dru on her daughter's corpse!" 

 

Jenny Calender makes a choking noise.

 

"Is that the kind o' shit you want me t' tell you? You think it'll make me feel better watchin' you lot flinch whene'er I come near?! You're the only people I've had more'n one conversation with fer ninety-odd years, you know how good it feels t' have someone use yer name? O' course I'd like not t' have them little episodes, but don' I bloody well deserve it?!"

 

They're almost cowering away from the force of his anger. He gets up.

 

"I'll see you tomorrow, Buffy," he snaps, forcing the accent out of his voice. He leaves.

* * *

"Does that happen often?" asks Buffy, curled into his side. She's wearing the big pink shirt she sleeps in sometimes, and her panties are blue, from the glimpse he got when she came in. It would be easy to rip them off her and haul her into his lap, but right now only the demon wants to. The man bit of him is fairly confident he will never get an erection again.

 

He shakes his head. "It hasn't happened in ten years. The first week after I got my soul, though-"

 

He shakes his head again. "Can we not? You make me forget. You make me feel- like the past isn't all I've got."

 

She makes a little noise of inquiry.

 

"You make me feel like I've got a future, too."

* * *

He doesn't know if they've come to an agreement or what, but after he reassures Buffy no one mentions talking until they're examining an elderly man who's been crucified to a tree.

 

"Why the hell would someone do this?" asks Oz, still covering Willow's eyes. A whole bunch of them had been on patrol, him with Oz and Willow and Buffy with Xander and Cordelia- Buffy'd yelled for him when the found the body.

 

"Some kind of ritual, maybe?" suggests Willow. "Crosses are ingrained with powerful magic, it's why so many biblical figures were crucified."

 

"Any clues?" asks Buffy. "Angel, gimme a boost to the lower branches?"

 

Angel looks up her skirt, feels bad about it, and remembers looking up the skirt of a young girl in Sichuan province-

 

"The nails are rusty," Xander notes. "Maybe our killer dismantled his roof?"

 

"I don't know about clues," says Angel, refocusing. "But this wasn't someone with experience, I can tell you that."

 

"How?" asks Xander. Of course it's Xander.

 

Angel points. "Looks like he hammered the nails through his palms first," he says. "Classic place for a crucifixion, except a man's palms can't support the weight of his body. See, they put 'em through his wrists next?"

 

Xander looks at him. "Giles wants to be your therapist," he announces abruptly. "Mainly cause he doesn't want you to have one of your PTSD issues next to Buffy, but also because he thinks you don't deserve to suffer."

 

"Xander!" cries Buffy from up in the tree. Angel smiles.

 

"And you, Harris?" he asks. "What d'you think?"

 

Xander doesn't answer.

 

"He wasn't kidding about Giles, Angel," says Willow. "You should really talk to someone."

 

He sighs. "I'll think about it," he promises, and no one says anything about it for the rest of the night.

* * *

They have something of a routine, when it comes to patrolling.

 

Most nights it's just him and Buffy, and they roam the graveyard, making out and hunting in equal measure, and she's gorgeous when she fights, all fluid muscle and flipping hair the color of sunlight. He walks her back home and they spend long hours grinding around on her bed, taking breaks to talk about everything and nothing, almost until the sun comes up.

 

But sometimes some of Buffy's friends join in. Giles at least twice a week, and then they don't get to make out at all. Willow comes along when she can, sometimes bringing Oz or Xander, and then he merely kisses Buffy goodnight before walking her home. Every Friday, Cordy, Willow, Oz, and Xander all come with. One night, when it's only Willow and Xander, he takes them both home, listening to the conversation and trying not to recall the many people he's surprised and disemboweled out on walks like this one.

 

Willow gets dropped off and the conversation goes with her. Xander and Angel walk in silence until they get to his house- which is lit up like a Christmas tree. Next to him, Xander stiffens and swears under his breath.

 

Angel can hear the shouting from here.

 

Xander swears again and hurries towards the house. Angel follows, but the Harris boy doesn't seem to notice.

 

"Stupid cunt!" comes the slurring voice from the kitchen window. "Fucking useless little bitch-"

 

"Oh,  _I'm_  useless? That's rich!" There's a sound of shattering glass.

 

Xander throws open the kitchen door. A small woman with dishwater-blond hair stands before a counter stacked with dirty dishes, one eye blackened. Before her, a tall, fat, slumpy man who reeks of alcohol is holding himself up against a doorframe. A pile of glass shards next to him testifies to the the origin of the earlier noise.

 

"Guys!" says Xander. "The neighbors are gonna call the police again-"

 

"Oh, so you're finally home," slurs the man. "Stupid fucking nancy boy, probably out fucking the red-haired slut-"

 

"Don't talk about Willow like-" 

 

Angel is eminently familiar with the sound of flesh on flesh. This one seems louder than usual. 

 

Xander Harris's head jerks around with the force of the blow. He stays looking away for a second, and something seems to die behind his eyes as he catches sight of Angel in the doorway.

 

Slowly, he looks back at his father, who hasn't stopped talking- "or maybe that little blond cunt, not that you'd have a chance with her-" and Angel automatically takes a step forward with rage in his throat. Xander makes a quelling gesture with his left hand, but it's too late- Mr. Harris has spotted him.

 

"Oh, so you're fucking  _him?_ " asks Xander's father with a lazy, drunken smirk. "Always took you for a pussy, but I never thought you were a fag, too-"

 

Xander turns around and storms up the stairs.

 

Angel turns around and walks away.

* * *

Xander reminds him of a man he killed in Prague. Same dark hair, same... odd sense of humor. He'd been a painter- he'd asked for Angel to model nude and Darla had made him do it. He'd sat naked in a warm, shadowy room for ten days, talking to the artist about technique, famous works, and his own drawings. It had been a lovely painting, and after the artist finished he'd kept him alive for weeks, peeling off bits of flesh and coaxing the artist into eating one or two, until Spike had slunk in around noon one day and snapped his neck, saying the screaming was keeping him up. He'd twisted Spike's arm until the tendons pulled apart and the bone crunched, explaining calmly while he did it that Spike hadn't really killed the artist, he'd done it himself two days ago when he'd taken off the pointer, middle finger, and thumb on both hands- the digits one needed to hold a paintbrush.

 

(Later that week, after Willy's arm had healed, he had Darla and Dru pose naked on the bed for him, Darla blond, curvy, and petite, Dru tall, slim, and dark-haired, blended together by the identical shadowy porcelain of their skin. He'd been pissed at Will, yes, but not enough to not invite him- while Angel squinted at his paper he'd serenaded the ladies from the piano and traded good-natured barbs with Darla and Drusilla had talked about where they'd go next- "Russia, daddy, I want to see the ice fairies.")   

* * *

The next day, he begs off accompanying Buffy on patrol and lies in wait in Xander Harris's yard. He doesn't show up for a long while, and when he does he's accompanied by the slouching form of his father, one arm slung over his son's shoulders and the other clutching a beer bottle.

 

(Angel has killed a thousand creatures like this. The memories burn, but the pain is a little less every time he remembers the smack of a meaty fist on Xander Harris's face.)

 

They go in. Xander comes up to his room, and Angel scrambles up the tree next to his window and gives a quiet knock.

 

Xander, his shirt halfway over his head, yelps audibly and falls over. Angel's not concerned. His mother's not in the house, and his father's already passed out in the living room, TV blaring. Angel finds he would be remarkably okay with him choking to death on his own vomit.

 

Xander disengages himself from the shirt and opens the window. "Do you  _mind?_ " he hisses, but sour dread not audible in his tone rolls over Angel like fog off the ocean. 

 

(He drowned a girl in an ocean once. Her hair was sandy, like Oz's current color, and she was smart enough to hold her breath until she finally panicked and screamed, a few stray bubbles pouring out of her nose and mouth to tickle along his wrist like the fine hairs of-)

 

"Hello," says Angel. "Can I come in?"

 

"Hmm, let me think- um, no. I kind of like my neck un-bitten. What do you want?"

 

"I need to talk to you."

 

"So talk," says Xander Harris, and he's so  _annoying_ -

 

"Fine," Angel snaps. "Your father's an abusive asshole and your mother's a lunatic enabler. Want me to help you?"

 

Xander goes white. "Don't you even  _think_  about hurting my parents," he spits. "I will fucking kill you-"

 

"I wouldn't hurt them."

 

A pause. "Explain," says Xander.

 

Angel shrugs. "It's not complicated. Pop out of the dark in demon-face, whisper that god doesn't like the way they treat their kid, maybe slip 'em something to make it more believable. I've done it before."

 

Xander looks at him. "Why would you?"

 

  
_Decency_ , he considers saying, or  _atonement._  Instead he goes with the truth, or at least part of it. "They piss me off." 

 

"Why?"

 

He doesn't answer, because  _they're bullies_ , would be a lie and because  _I hate drunks_  would be too close to the truth.

 

Xander rolls his eyes. "Thanks for the offer, Deadboy, but no thanks." He slams the window shut.

 

Angel leaves.

* * *

They're making out again, grinding like horny teenagers through their pants, and then he twists his hips a little in the way Darla always liked and Buffy spasms on top of him and collapses, twitching, and he follows her over with a snarl-  

* * *

Xander shows up to the library one sunset with a fractured wrist. Giles catches him wincing and seizes his arm, rolling up the sleeve.

 

"What happened, Xander?" demands Willow, moving to examine the bruised limb.   

 

"Xander," says Giles, clucking like a mother hen. "You sit right down, I'll fetch some first aid supplies." He pauses an unnecessary moment to place a fatherly hand on Xander's shoulder, and Xander starts to smell a little like tears.

 

(Angel thinks of a time in France, when Will'd come home one evening with a broken arm, bruises all over, and a stupid story about a human bar fight. He'd kicked him in the broken arm for lying to him, and then pulled him close and licked the blood off his face, plastering their lips together and biting down hard enough to draw a hint of fresh blood before leaving Drusilla to patch him up. He and Darla'd found the demons that beat him and killed them all, messily, bringing one back to Willy alive- the lad couldn't torture worth beans, but he'd been happy to watch, and that night in their big bed Dru and Darla had plastered themselves all over his cock for almost an hour while he (Angelus) had lounged back and stroked himself.)

 

(Angel likes Giles. He reminds him of his father, and Xander looks at him a little like Spike had looked at his grandsire, once, though he doubted Xander had ever sucked the Watcher's cock.) 

 

"Yeah, Xan, what happened?" asks Buffy with concern, stranding up from his lap. 

 

"Nothing, really," says Xander, sounding embarrassed. "Just... tripped, is all."

 

Giles, bustling back in with the first-aid supplies, has a knife's edge of suspicion glinting in his eyes. "What happened, Xander?" he asks quietly, and Angel doesn't know why, but he speaks up-

 

"My fault, I'm afraid."

 

"You _broke_  his arm?" demands Buffy, gorgeous in her anger.

 

"I doubt it's broken," says Angel. "He asked me to show him a few fighting moves for us bigger guys, and I didn't duck fast enough and got slugged in the face." He switches his gaze to Xander and makes it reproachful. "You really do need to hold you arm better."

 

"Yeah, well, you need to hold your  _face_ better," snaps Xander, who is probably a little more quick-witted than anyone really gives him credit for.  

 

Buffy's giving him a look that means  _did I wake up in a parallel universe?_  "You two... spent time together. Without trying to kill each other."

 

"Well,  _I_  wasn't trying to kill  _him,_ " he says. "But I can't speak for Harris. That was a  _really_  good punch."

 

"Is your face alright, Angel?"

 

"Broke my nose and a cheekbone," he says, giving Buffy his best puppy eyes.

 

"Poor Angel," she coos, giving him a hug. Her breasts are pressed against his cheek. Across the room, Cordy's giving Xander the same sort of embrace. Him and Xander exchange a glance that transcends species boundaries or mutual enmity.

* * *

"So," says Xander, next time Angel's walking him home. "Why'd you lie for me?"

 

Angel shrugs. 

 

"I thought you were past the brooding silence thing," snaps Xander. 

 

The corner of Angel's lips curls up, though he continues to look straight ahead. "I brood in my sleep, Harris. I'll never be past it." 

 

Xander snorts, too. Angel remembers leaping out from the shrubbery in a small Irish town for his second set of murders- a pair of men returning from a tavern, a bit drunk, laughing and staggering and talking about the taller one's fiancé. 

 

There's quiet for a moment. "I still think you should let me do something about your parents. Or at least tell Giles."

 

"Giles? Why  _Giles?_ "

 

"Because he loves you," says Angel. 

 

Xander makes a small noise of bitter amusement.

 

"He does," snaps Angel. "More than your biological dad, at any rate."

 

Xander makes a choking noise.

 

"What?" demands Angel. 

 

"I'll talk to Giles when  _you_  do," snaps Harris. They walk in silence for several minutes.

 

"About the whole- fighting thing," says Xander. "Would you mind, you know, keeping up the pretense?"

 

"Who says it has to be a pretense?" asks Angel. They're approaching his house. It's lit up again. "You should learn to fight like a guy, Buffy's style's a bit too acrobatic for you."

 

"And... you'd teach me?" Xander sounds shocked. Angel's a bit surprised himself.

 

"Sure. 'Specially if you're gonna patrol with Buffy."

 

"Cool." Xander stops, puts his hands in his pockets, shuffles his feet. "I... still think you're an asshole," he confesses to the ground. "But... thanks."

 

"Don' mention it, lad," say Angel, thinking of Spike and cursing internally as the accent returns. "Tomorrow? Around nine?"

 

Harris nods. Angel watches as he crosses the street and enters the house, hears a crash. He leaves.

* * *

Their first lesson goes well enough. They run over where to hit- ("Fangs are dangerous, but sensitive. Kidney's right here. If you can shove his nose into his brain, you might not even have to stake him. Kicking somebody in the groin is not manly, but it can't eat you if it's on the floor clutching itself.")- and a few basic moves, and then he basically attacks and lets Xander hit him. He's fairly strong for a human, and his punches land where they should, though he stops a little short, doesn't put his full power behind everything.

 

"Harris," he says. "C'mon. Put your back into it."

 

"Buffy'll kill me if I hurt you."

 

He feels a little smug when he says, "Trust me, that's not gonna happen."

 

Xander glares. 

 

"Look. First of all, I'm a vampire. That makes me tougher than most. Second, I heal quick. Third, I'm used to pain, anything you can hand out won't even make me yelp."

 

Xander frowns. "Why are you used to pain?"

 

"What?"

 

"Well, I know you dished it out, back when you were still evil. But why-"

 

Angel shrugs. "Got in a lotta fights over the years. Particularly after I got my soul. Plus Darla liked-"

 

He thinks about all the possible ends for that sentence, and stops talking.

 

"So- Darla," asks Xander. "What was she- like?"

 

Angel looks at him.

 

"Well- I just-  always wondered, okay? She helped kill one of my best friends, you know, and-"

 

"Jesse," says Angel.

 

Xander frowns. "How come you know that?"

 

"There are too many names I don't know," says Angel. "Try that block again?"  

* * *

A shirtless Buffy grinds herself down on his lap, whimpering. He grinds back up and hisses a little as he feels the heat of her cunt through her jeans. He can  _smell_  how wet she is.

 

"Angel," she says. "I- god-"

 

He removes his hands from her breasts and grabs both her hips, stilling her. Her hair is tousled, her skin flushed, her lips swollen. Hickies dot her neck. He wants to fuck her till she bleeds.

 

Instead he smiles, slowly, and another whimper catches in her throat at the sight. "Pretty Buffy," he purrs. His hands move down to the button on her jeans.

 

"Angel-" He undoes the button and slowly pulls down the zipper.

 

"Um, I've never, um, I don't-"

 

He turns from where he sits on the edge of the bed and tosses her a little so that her head lands on the pillow.

 

"Angel-" 

 

"Yes," he murmurs. He pulls her jeans down her ankles. Her underwear are yellow cotton, and damp.

 

"I- god-" he's sliding down the bed, slowly pushing her legs apart, "Oh god,"

 

"God would  _faint_  if he heard the things I wanna do to you, Buffy," he purrs, and his fingers curl into her waistband. "And so would you." He shreds her underwear. The scraps end up across the room.  

 

Buffy makes a high-pitched keening noise. He plants his face between her legs and the keening turns to shrieks.

 

(Darla- no. 

 

Buffy.)

 

She gets one quick, shuddering orgasm and then he draws it out for almost half an hour, avoiding her clit and ignoring her increasingly more frantic bucking.

 

"Angel," she begs. "Please, please, please-"

 

"Please what, sweetheart?" he murmurs. 

 

"I don't know," she sobs. "Pleasepleasepleaseplease-"

 

"Hey," he whispers. "Shhh-"

 

He lets her come. She screams his name, and he doesn't think of-

* * *

"I don't know anything about the Boxer's Rebellion," groans Cordy, planting her head on the table. Angel, describing a Katmaka demon's psyche to Giles as he frantically makes notes, glances over.

 

"Me neither," says Buffy with a sigh. "Willow, we've got a test tomorrow, could you-"

 

"Umm- sure," says Willow, looking away from Oz. "I can-"

 

"But I thought we were gonna-" says Oz, and cuts himself off, but the damage is done.

 

"Oh no, Willow," says Buffy. "We can study ourselves," she lies lamely. Cordy opens her mouth to object, but gets kicked under the table for her trouble.

 

"You know," says Angel, "I was in China during the Boxer's rebellion."

 

(Spike, looking at him, covered in the blood of the Slayer, a kitten bringing a dead mouse to the feet of it's master and waiting for gushing approval- 

 

Why does he feel guilty about the disappointment on his face?)

 

"You were?" asks Cordy. 

 

"Spike killed his first Slayer there, did he not?" asks Giles.  _Fuck_ , Angel thinks.

 

"Yeah," he says instead. "In one of the temples, I think."

 

For a moment he thinks no one will make the connection. Cordy and Buffy certainly don't, but- 

 

"I thought you had your soul by then," frowns clever Willow Rosenburg. He burns with shame and imagines smashing her head against the table until that big brain of hers pours out like the insides of a rotting melon.

 

He snorts bitterly. "I found them again. Darla was willing to tolerate me. I slaughtered rapists and murderers like sheep, and left when she told me to kill a baby."

 

There's silence.

 

"I'll get you that sketch on Monday, Giles," he says, and goes to walk out. 

 

"Hey!" says Cordy, just as he reaches the door. 

 

"What?" he asks, confused.

 

"While you're off brooding over your terribleness, I'm going to fail my history test. Get your ass back here!" 

 

"Yeah, Angel," says Buffy. "This is an emergency, you can be miserable later."

 

He smiles without meaning to as he sits down. He can't remember the last time he did that.

* * *

He's walking Willow and Oz home.

 

"-and I thought his other books were pretty good too, even if he did go a little nuts."

 

Angel quirks his lips as he looks down at her. She's holding Oz's hand, but he doesn't feel like a third wheel- or, well, he does, but like a third wheel on a tricycle or a three-legged stool. "If you like Sholtz, you should try Frye, he's got some nice anthologies that I can lend you, though his stuff tends to get bit more lyrical than-"

 

"You always did like t' fuck redheads," says a voice.

 

Everyone jumps and turns.

 

(The girl flailed in his lap, red hair askew, making choking noises around the stump of her tongue. She really shouldn't have stuck it in his mouth.

 

"Are we done, Angelus?" drawled Spike from the door.

 

Angelus grinned up at his grandchilde.

 

"Ye should be a mite more patient, lad."

 

"Why do you always have to be so bloody artistic?")

 

He tilts his head back to gaze at where Spike perches atop the wall.

 

"Since when have I liked redheads?"

 

"Used t'be you liked to fuck anything with a cunt. I remember a couple times when you didn't even need that much."

 

Willow presses her back to his. Oz stands slightly to the left of them, ready to lunge in if needed.

 

"There a reason you're here, Spike?"

 

"Just came to see for meself how far you'd sunk. Gotta say, I'm impressed. It takes real work to get yourself far beneath your old self."

 

Angel spits back without thinking- "And you know all about being  _beneath_  my old self."

 

Spike winces exagerattedly. He can feel Willow's heart thumping against his back, fast and delicate and crushable as a baby bird's. 

 

"Still a snarky little bitch, aren't you, gramps?" He blows a kiss and disappears over the wall.

 

Angel stares after him, fists clenching and unclenching.

 

"Angel?" asks Willow. "Are you okay?" She wraps her fingers around his fist as Oz grasps his shoulder.

 

He realizes they've been standing there for almost ten minutes. "Yeah," he says. "I'm fine. Let's get you home."

* * *

"Good punch," he says, retreating. "But your guard's too high-" he darts under Xander's arm and hip-checks him onto the ground. Xander rolls with the fall, not as well as some but better than he used to, but instead of popping up again he sprawls out on the grass.

 

"Break," he asks, breathing hard, and Angel nods and offers him a hand up. 

 

("Get up, boy," he snaps, kicking Will in the side and hearing a rib crack. "You'll learn this if I have to break every bone in your body."

 

"My... shoulder's... out of joint," he pants.

 

"Get up an I'll fix it." 

 

Will staggers to his feet and Angelus grasps his arm-

 

Will slams his forehead into Angelus's nose and brings a knee up between his legs. Angelus lands on his back and rolls away.

 

"Good lad," he says, panting slightly. "Now get yer skinny English arse over here so I c'n fix yer shoulder." )

 

Xander staggers over to his water bottle and sits down. Angel plops companionably down beside him. He looks at the bruise on Xander's cheekbone. It's not from him.

 

"You asked about Darla, once," he says, because Darla is preferable to Spike. For one thing, she's dead. 

 

"I did."

 

"I don't really understand you, Harris," he says. 

 

"Not like I understand you either, Dorkula. Anything in particular, or are you just going to fade dramatically into the night?"

 

Angel looks up at the stars. "Why d'you wanna know this stuff, Harris? D'you wanna tell Buffy, is that it?"

 

Xander snorts. "You got a really high opinion of me there, don't ya, corpsey?"

 

"So, you're offering to listen out of affection?"

 

" _Fuck_ , no."

 

"Morbid curiosity?"

 

"Not even I'm that morbid, deadboy." Xander takes another gulp of water.

 

"Then what is it, then?"

 

Xander reclines comfortably back on his elbows against the slight slope of the small hillock that comprises much of his backyard, stretching his feet out before him.

 

"Let's get a few things straight, okay, Deadboy? I think you're a prick. More than that, I think you're bad for Buffy. I think you're just more darkness in a life that ain't all that bright in any case, and that however much you claim to love her, eventually one of your issues is gonna get the both of you killed. But, you keep a damn good secret. And you're helping me with this... fighting shit. Which- probably isn't out of the goodness of your- oh, wait, your heart doesn't work anyway."

 

Angel snarls at him. Xander's used to it, isn't fazed.

 

"But, I owe you. And, you gotta deal with your shit before it hurts Buffy. And, you could talk to Giles, but he kind of likes you, God knows why. Me, I already think you're a bastard."

 

Angel stares ahead at nothing. "You don't deserve it. No one deserves to hear this... shit."

 

"You don't exactly deserve to have to say it."

 

He raises an eyebrow at Xander.

 

"Way I see it, you're not the guy who killed all those people. Maybe part of you is, but not the part that feels guilty about it, which is kinda ironic."

 

Angel snorts bitterly. "You're an introspective little shit, aren't you?"

 

Xander gives a nonchalant shrug. "When I try."

 

"I'll think about it. Now get up, we're not leaving till you get that throw right."

* * *

He and Giles and Miss Calender are in the library, late at night, doing research.

 

"I've got something on the Shotiku demon," offers Miss Calender from the computer. "Mentions some kind of- Crag of Despair, if I'm translating right-"

 

"You're translating right," says Angel, leaning over her shoulder. Her heart speeds up automatically, but he can't smell any fear, though he feels the flicker of a desire to bury teeth in her neck. "Thing is, though, kikita was a local slang for curse-"

 

"Of course!" says Giles, lunging for an enormous, dusty tome sitting on the shelf. "The Curse of Despair- Angel, can you grab Ericson's  _Magica de Sangre_?"

 

'That'd be in the 409's, right?" He moves for the shelves. He'd killed a librarian once-

 

"Scan the pages, Angel," calls Miss Calendar. "I'll put it through my translation program-"

 

"That's  _cheating_ ," he hears Giles huff. Miss Calender snickers as he returns with the book. 

 

"Miss Calender, I'm not sure I'm  _capable_  of operating a scanner-thingy," he confesses. 

 

Miss Calender sighs. "Men," she mutters ungracefully, taking the book from him. "I have to do  _everything_  myself-"

 

"I could read it!" says Giles as the same time Angel protests "I know Spanish!"

 

"So do I," snips Miss Calender, heading for Giles' office. "In fact,  _I_  could read every book in this place. But if I left you people alone with a computer for five minutes, you'd set something on fire."

 

"We are not that bad!" Giles snaps. He looks at Angel. "Are we that bad?"

 

"Hey, I was raised in an era where the musket was the height of technology, what's your excuse?" 

 

Giles splutters. 

 

"I'm making coffee," calls Miss Calender. "Anybody want some?"

 

Giles raises his voice. "The Irish wastrel will have some of your primitive bean-curd, presumably with whiskey-"

 

"-but the English pig will take some of his boiled leaf-juice!"

 

Miss Calender bustles out with the printed pages, then goes back in for the coffees and the tea. Angel takes a gulp-

 

"Is this blood?" 

 

"Mmm, yeah," she says distractedly, bending over a book. (Giles glances down her shirt.) "You're always forgetting to eat, you look even paler than normal after a few hours here, I picked up a few pints to keep in the fridge."

 

"Good idea," says Giles. "Angel, how long do you suppose it would take to spoil?"

 

"Five days," says Angel, a catch in his chest. 

 

"Be sure to come by before then, then, to finish it off. Jenny, can you hand me that article?"

* * *

There was a couple, once, in St. Petersburg. Older man, pretty woman, a gaggle of children. He'd wanted to have a little fun, so he'd staggered to their doorway one morning with a self-inflicted gash over his right eye, claiming to have been robbed. The man was a scholar of some sort, the woman sharp-tongued and bustling. She'd opened the door right away and pulled him in, snapping at the blond girl (about eleven) to "quit reading at the breakfast table," and then she'd practically shoved him into a chair and prodded his wound until the man came down the narrow stairs, whereupon she'd scurried to him and straightened his hat while he'd lifted a hand to cup her cheek, the expression on his face akin to one suddenly declared king of the world.

 

(The man had broken his own arm trying to escape his bonds while Angel raped his wife, the big brains of his pretty daughter smeared on his hands.)  

* * *

It's a week until he knocks on Xander's window again. No one's home but Xander.

 

"Hey, leech-boy," says Xander, pulling it open. 

 

"That's a new one," he notes. "Been reading Twilight?"

 

Xander looks surprised, but pleased, too. "When did you become a snarky little bitch? Also, you read Twilight?"

 

Angel rolls his eyes and remembers Spike.

 

"Be down in a second, alright?" says Xander, sitting at his desk. "I've just got some homework-"

 

"I didn't come here to fight."

 

Xander looks at him. Angel opens his jacket. Inside is a bottle of vodka and a sketchbook.

 

"Come in," says Xander, for the first time.

 

Angel closes the window behind him.

* * *

He opens the vodka first. Takes a deep gulp and feels the burn in his throat. Then he passes it to Xander. Xander looks down at the bottle.

 

"Go on," says Angel. "You don't wanna listen to this sober." 

 

"I've never touched this stuff," Xander says quietly.

 

Angel opens the sketchbook. It's the one he keeps in his safe, hidden under his bed, and he has nightmares about Buffy finding it.

 

Xander looks at the first picture and goes as white as Angel himself. He takes a drink.

 

"I met this girl in Seville, 1801. She told me she was four and a half. I can't remember her name, but she tasted like strawberries."

* * *

Buffy removes herself from his lap.

 

"What-"

 

She grins up at him, all teeth and lust, and then slides down to her knees.

 

"Fuck," he says, and she laughs and undoes his belt, just like Dru used to-

 

Oh. Ohh. Oh god.

* * *

"I don't know what's wrong with it," Oz confesses to the insides of his car. "It  _looks_  normal-"  

 

"Here." Angel pulls him out of the way. It's an easy fix- adjust  _this_ , click  _that_  into place-

 

"Try it again, Cordelia," he calls, and the engine rumbles to life.

 

"I need to have you look at my car, Angel," she says, scrambling out. "How'd you learn so much about cars, anyway?"

 

He twitches his lips at her, thinking of blood. "You'd be surprised how much you pick up over the years." 

 

"So, someone you killed taught you?"

 

He hesitates.

 

Oz claps him on the back. "You wanna ride home?"

 

"I'm good," says Angel. The car will be warm, and smell like happiness and love from where Oz and Willow've been making out.

 

Cordy rolls her eyes. "Get in the damn car, Angel," she snaps, and almost against his will his lips form a full-blown grin.

* * *

"You know," he says, leaning back against the bast of the house, "these don't just work on vampires."

 

Xander looks at him, then looks away.

 

"I'm just saying. You wouldn't let anyone else beat on you without fighting back, how come your dad-"

 

"You don't understand."

 

"Really?" he snorts. "Is that what you think?"

 

"Yeah, that's what I think."

 

"Wanna hear another story, Xander, lad? Once upon a time, when I was six or so, I got me first thrashin'. Wanna know what I did?"

 

"What?"

 

"Went out on the pond the day after it froze over, on'ly it weren't quite frozen. Almost fell through the ice.  Da took 'is belt t' me, and when I'd quit cryin' e' gave me a hug and made me tea."

 

Xander stirs beside him. "What-"

 

"What'd you do t' earn yer first bruise, Harris?"

 

Xander doesn't say anything. 

 

"Did ye drop a dish?" Angel says, relentless. "Did ye eat your mum's cake batter? Mess up yer room? Break a window? Or were ye just  _there?_ " 

 

"Is there gonna be a point in here, somewhere?" demands Xander. He smells like tears and hopelessness.

 

"Yeah. Fight back. Tell Giles. Let me help you. Do sommat what doesn't involve standin' there and  _takin'_  it!"

 

Xander takes a deep, shuddery breath. "I'm almost out," he says, almost pleadingly. "Just one more year, and I'll be out-"

 

"And no one will ever know," he finishes. Xander doesn't say anything, but the silence is confirmation enough.

 

"Think of how they'd react," Angel muses. He knows all too well how to get responses from people. "Oz- well, he wouldn't say much, but you can read him well enough by now, can't you? He'd feel so bad for you- not in a pitying way, but that would almost make it worse, wouldn't it? And Willow- Willow would cry, and blame herself, and look at you with those big bambi eyes- Giles would blame himself too, of course, maybe reach out to grab your shoulder, and you'd flinch back, and he'd  _hate_  himself. And Buffy and Cordelia?" He snorts. "They'd hunt your father down and kill him. You know, sometimes I think they're more alike than they'd care to admit." For a horrible instant, he wonders of the same could be said of him and Xander, before he consigns that thought to the midden where it belongs. "Either way, they'd all feel so  _bad_  for you, all of them, and they'd know you didn't do  _anything_ , they'd know how  _weak_  you were-"

 

Xander punches him in the face. There's a loud  _crunch_.

 

They sit in silence for a moment.

 

"You don't get to talk to me like that," Xander says, his voice sodden with unshed tears.

 

"And your father does?" Angel reaches up to snap his nose back into place.

 

Xander swallows hard. "I don't-" he pauses, takes a ragged breath.

 

Angel moves his elbow very slightly to the left, so that it touches Xander's arm.

 

"Let me think about it?" He asks finally. He sounds... young. Angel forgets, sometimes, that they're all so young.

 

"Sure. Wanna do some more?"

 

Xander hauls him to his feet.

* * *

He doesn't have to leave. He can stay here, stay here with Buffy, gorgeous, wonderful Buffy, with sweet Willow and kind Ms. Calendar, and Buffy, and fatherly Giles and snotty-but-not Cordelia, and Buffy, and taciturn Oz and assholish Xander, and Buffy, and Buffy, Buffy, Buffy-

 

He plays with the strap of her camisole. She turns. The look in her eyes...

 

Buffy. Buffy. Buffy.

 

He calls her name as he comes, and as they curl up together, as she plants a gentle kiss on his shoulder, for the first time in a long while, he feels warm. 

 

 


End file.
